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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29723454">Find your way home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queerlilfella/pseuds/Queerlilfella'>Queerlilfella</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Family, Family Dynamics, Fluff and Angst, Historical Inaccuracy, Historical References, Mentions of Pregnancy, Mentions of rape (only in passing), Team as Family</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:15:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,535</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29723454</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queerlilfella/pseuds/Queerlilfella</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe and Nicky had always known they wouldn't be able to have children- but the knowledge that they would leave nothing in this world that would testify to them both. There would be no trace of the good they'd done in just a couple of years. It hurt.</p><p>Or: the 5 + 1 of Joe and Nicky wishing for children</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Andy | Andromache &amp; Booker | Sebastien &amp; Nile Freeman &amp; Joe | Yusef &amp; Nicky | Nicolò, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Find your way home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm a sucker for the whole found family trope, and imagining Joe and Nicky with kids just makes me feel.</p><p>There is a short mention of an OC being raped in the past, there are mentions of holocaust, war, famine, death and pregnancy.</p><p>There's also mushy feelings from the writer so be prepared for that as well.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sometimes it was hard, being immortal and spending every day with the love of his oh-so long life while not being able to start a family of their own.<br/>
Everyone on the team had been growing up surrounded by a bunch of kids- having children and having a lot of them had been a big thing back then, especially considered the rate of child death back then.<br/>
It was mostly Nicolo who'd longed to have children all his life. But the second he'd decided to become a priest and later to fight for a thing he then believed was right, he knew he wouldn't start a family. After finding his immortality and meeting Yusuf, though, realizing the faults in his deeds, he knew that the probability of having kids had just gotten even smaller.<br/>
In the beginning of their relationship a couple hundred years after they'd met, that had made both of them question themselves: were they enough for each other without a family? Would their relationship be able to withstand crisis without children fusing them together? Was there something wrong with their love? Over the years experience and trust wiped out these questions, but the need, or rather the longing for their own little family remained, hidden so deeply, they rarely shared it with the other.</p><p> </p><p>I.</p><p>The first time Nicolo and Yusuf acted as fathers was early on in their relationship, during one of the last crusades in the early 1200's that would go down in history as the children's crusade. The soldiers they had fought with or against in the past had always been young, some barely seemed to have escaped childhood, if at all. But the groups that mostly consisted and were led by actual children that were forming in what would one day be France and Germany defied everything they had seen until then.<br/>
Which is exactly why Yusuf had insisted on going with them, offering them at least some preparation and support during their travels and fighting. (He had always been protective: probably something that stuck with him from having younger sisters.) Nicolo was more hesitant: he had been on the wrong side of history before, he really didn't want to be there again that soon. Also- shouldn't they try to keep them from leaving in the first place? Prevent another crusade? Yusuf's plan, or so he'd told him, was to bring them someplace they weren't welcome which would hinder their ongoing travel plans- but to the children it wouldn't feel like they were stopped in their mission. This is why they decided to bring them to Genoa first, knowing quite well only few of the soldiers would be able to communicate and the groups themselves would mostly annoy the local townspeople. And they were right. A big part of the warriors left to go back home after seeing the reaction of people in Genoa.<br/>
Next, they brought the boys that were left to Marseilles, where they were pretending to be waiting for a ship to take them over the sea to their actual destination.<br/>
A lot of the children found work there, some left to go home or elsewhere, but sadly a lot of them also didn't know how to handle the amount of unknown liquor they suddenly had before them- some lost control over their lives, drowned in alcohol, others got sold into slavery by locals.<br/>
The few that were left luckily only made it to Rome to talk to the Pope about their mission.<br/>
They didn't get any further than that, and Nicolo would never hear the end of Yusuf's "Told you so".</p><p> </p><p>II.</p><p>The second time was a lot more spontaneous and even less fun than the first time. It happened during World War One, where the Team was doing cleanup and basic help in towns that were suffering under the influences of the war. They were in Austria, in a small town near Carynthia, which was hit quite harshly. They were searching destroyed houses for survivors, food and everything useful they could find. In one of those houses they could hear a small child cry. Digging through the rubble, Nicolo tried to make out where the sound was coming from. Soon enough he saw that in the small space left under the rubble, with just enough air supplied through the gaps, there was a Baby, crying its soul out with a layer of dust covering him, otherwise unharmed.<br/>
Nicolo took care of the little boy with a seriousness no one, not even Yusuf, would have expected while Yusuf tried to find surviving family members.<br/>
When he saw Nico attempting to knit a hat for the baby that evening he bit back his snarky comment and instead gave a soft smile at the way Nicos tongue was sticking out in concentration, the baby lying next to him on a makeshift mattress.<br/>
It turned out, the little boy didn't have any family. Or at least not any that was willing to take care of him. Apparently the boy was a bastard and the family unwilling to overlook their now dead daughters mistakes.<br/>
Nicolo convinced Yusuf to take the baby in. The latter was hesistant, still remembering Bookers devastation after his children died and not wanting Nico to feel the very same pain. But looking at Nico when he was rocking the baby to sleep, a soft smile on his lips he'd missed for quite some time, and knowing he wouldn't ever get a second chance at this, he couldn't say no.<br/>
The little boy died just a few days after the rescue (his time under the rubble without warmth or food had taken a lot out of him).<br/>
Yusuf would never forget the way Nicolo cried.<br/>
How helpless he felt looking at the man he loved sobbing in his arms, not knowing what to do.</p><p>After that, it was expected.</p><p> </p><p>III.</p><p>They knew the liberation of the concentration camps the Nazis had built all over Europe was going to happen, so they made sure to be able to help by becoming part of the US-Army (a first for all of them).<br/>
Seeing the terrors left behind by fleeing German soldiers, doctors, guards and whatever the helpers of this enormous death machine called themselves, they were once more disturbed in their belief that there was any good left in humanity.<br/>
Seeing people so weakened by hunger or torture they weren't able to hold themselves upright made them realize how fragile mortal human lives could be.<br/>
But what hit the whole team the hardest was seeing the children of all ages alone, dirty, starving. Some were holding on to younger siblings, others were taking care of as many as they could or simply trying to hang onto he ever breaking thread that were their lives, while most were still active enough to try and find other surviving family members. Most of them had been Orphans for some time, trying to fight for their survival in the harsh surroundings on their own.<br/>
It didn't get any easier to see children suffering, no matter how many times they saw it.<br/>
While Andy and Booker took care of the remaining German soldiers, Joe and Nicky (very American names, indeed) tried to take care of the kids to the best of their abilities. The elder ones were mostly helped with food, shelter and a bath while the younger ones obviously needed more help. Nickys heart ached every time he held a young boy in his arms, but pulled himself together, knowing that those were kids he could give a future to, even though he knew that all of them needed help beyond what they could offer as immediate relief.<br/>
So that's what they did: offer them first aid. They gave them food, sang them  to sleep, showed them little games they remembered from a long, long time ago. A small spark of light in young lives that had been kept in the dark for too long.<br/>
Days after they arrived, with the US Army still trying to find placements for all these people to stay, the couple got back to the former concentration camp after getting a couple hours of sleep. "PAPA!!" young voices echoed over to them. They looked around, trying to find out who'd arrived, when a bunch of smaller kids came over to them, hugging their legs while excitedly yelling "Papa, da bist du ja wieder!" "Papa, schau mal was der Soldat mir gegeben hat!". Nicky could barely see the children surrounding him, tears clouding his sight. In that moment the thought of handing over any of these children seemed unbearable.</p><p>Years later they would still try to find out what had happened to the survivors, many of them doing educational work all over the world, though most of the survivors had left Germany. Seeing the records of their death, seeing them testify against their former punishers in courts all over the world always gave them a heavy heart. Everyone on the team knew they would never fully understand the hardships and terror those people had faced in their lives. Still, seeing so many of those children they had met back then work on never repeating that particular part of history did fill them with a weird sense of pride.</p><p>Yusuf still told Nicolo that it was his work, to some extend, that helped the kids regain the power to do so.</p><p> </p><p>IV.</p><p>After Germany it was Africa during the Nigerian civil war. Wars never seemed to end these days. Sometimes the team felt like they barely even got a break anymore.<br/>
Still, after hearing about the riots and mass starvation happening in Biafra they couldn't help but take action. The first time Nicolo looked at the children, some with flies sitting in their eyes, lacking the energy to close them, he felt like he was in Germany all over again. Only this time, he didn't feel like he could give any of them a future. Militant groups were still raging in war all around them, the conflict kept getting more and more intense and violent. There barely was any food to give to the families that were left behind, no shelter to offer, sparse hospitals filled to the brim. Some nights, when he was lying next to Yusuf, trying to get a few hours of rest, he startled awake from dreams of the children, most of which were toddlers getting shot by their older brothers who'd been forced to act as soldiers in this unholy war. It was those times that Yusuf truly understood just how empathetic his lover really was. How much all those past missions really had influenced him.<br/>
The next day one of the women, or rather girls, that had been raped by a soldier passing through town went into labor. With no real Doctor nearby it was up to the team to take care of her and her child. All of them had delivered Babys in the past, but childbirth as a process had progressed by far since they'd last assisted. While Andy was dropping herself off, trying to find an actual doctor, Booker told them someone still had to take care of everyone else, which meant Joe and Nicky were left alone with a frightened young woman in pain, not really sure what they were supposed to do. Looking at each other they decided to just go with what they remembered- childbirth itself probably hadn't changed in the past 400 years, they were sure of that.<br/>
So while Joe was taking care of the woman, whispering reassuring words to her that Nicky could barely hear, sometimes praying, sometimes singing a lullaby, Nicky was in charge of the "medical part" if you dare call it that.</p><p>It was a grueling process, everyone in the tent sweating and wishing for the moment to pass. There was blood, actual tearing of tissue and both Joe and Nicky, none of which considered themselves prone to growing faint, actually saw spots when the woman gripped their hands particularly tight upon experiencing another contraction.<br/>
They had to do without hot water for the baby, could only offer her the cleanest rugs they had been able to find, but when Joe had been able to pull the baby the rest of the way into this harsh world and lay it onto their mothers chest- he swore he felt peace for the first time in a long time.<br/>
Real peace, he would tell Nicky later. Not the kind of peace that lets you forget the world around you for a second, but the one that has you realize the actual cruelty of the world and still see the innocence in everything around you, but especially that one particular specimen.<br/>
Nicky, who'd seen Joe cradle the baby with a loving look in his eyes, knew exactly what he meant.</p><p> </p><p>V.</p><p>The fifth time they both consciously regretted not being able to have their own family was when they were in Merricks Lab. Seeing the love of their life strapped to a table, watching each other die way too many times, the insecurity of not knowing whether or not they were going to wake up again- the knowledge that they hadn't experienced that hurt. The knowledge that they would leave nothing in this world that would testify to them both. There would be no trace of the good they'd done in just a couple of years.<br/>
Not only the fact that they hadn't gotten to wake up to tiny feet tapping on wooden floors in excitement on a snowy morning, but also the fact that they hadn't been able to teach a child just how beautiful this world could be, despite all its faults.<br/>
Nicky looked over at Joe, with his beautiful curls, and tried to shake the image of a child looking just like him, trying to rhyme after learning what poems are in grade school, painting the flowers and the sunsets after learning there would be not one like that ever again.<br/>
Meanwhile, Joe couldn't help but think of all the missed opportunities of family they'd already had: the baby boy in Austria, the children in Germany, Africa, and every other country they had ever been to, with all the children that needed help.<br/>
The looked at each other, not quite mourning, and shook their heads. A silent 'Don't do that to yourself.'.</p><p>Just then Nile came rushing through the door, full of youth and life and still as close to a mortal as one of them would ever get. Looking at them in the same desperation a younger sibling would.</p><p>+I</p><p>They always knew they wouldn't be able to have children. But no one had said they couldn't have family.<br/>
And watching Joe braid Niles hair. Watching Nile try and teach Booker how to cook. Watching Nicky train Nile in sword fighting. Watching Nile excitedly tell them about some history fact, or some pop culture reference. Watching all the little moments, they knew that having family was enough.<br/>
There would still be the little 'Don't do that to yourself.' moments. But they would be interrupted by Nile fleeing from Andy trying to tickle her so bad she would throw up.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>But I found my family.<br/>I found the right thing to do.<br/>I found the way home.</p><p>Also:<br/>"Papa, da bist du ja wieder!": Dad, there you are again!<br/>"Papa, schau mal was der Soldat mir gegeben hat!": Dad, look what the soldier gave me!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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